Zhang Ni took Quanling in the dead of night. He let his exhausted men catch a short breath, then roused them before dawn broke.
By the time pale light touched the walls, his troops were already moving north.
When the Jiaozhou envoys first stumbled into the southern jungles of Nanzhong, they brought scraps of intel.
Jiangdong was pushing hard into southern Jingzhou.
That was all they had. Details were nonexistent. The whole picture was a messed-up blur.
But as Zhang Ni drove his army north, mile by bloody mile, the fog began to lift. The grand strategic shape of the Jingnan theater unfolded before his eyes.
The eastern half of southern Jingzhou was a tangled web of rivers and streams. The Xiang River cut through the land like a great water road binding three commanderies together. Lingling. Guiyang. Changsha. All linked by its winding currents. To make things worse, this eastern flank shared a direct border with Jiangdong territory. That geography handed the invaders a heaven-sent advantage in logistics and troop movement.
The defenders had one small blessing. The current. The Xiang River rose far to the south and raced all the way north toward the vast waters of Yunmeng Marsh. Any Jiangdong fleet sailing up from the marsh had to fight the current every inch of the way. Zhang Ni, however, came from the deep south. That gave him a sharp edge. He could take boats and let the river carry his men north at great speed.
There was a problem. A big one.
Guiyang and Changsha had already fallen. If Zhang Ni took a fleet from Quanling and sailed straight down the Xiang River, he would slam headfirst into a wall of Jiangdong naval blockades. Every defensive line the enemy had strung across the water. Smashing through them all would drain his manpower and burn precious time he did not have.
Zhang Ni sat at the front of his narrow wooden boat. The morning mist clung to his armor. He counted on his fingers, turning the options over in his head. This was exactly why he refused to sail the Xiang River directly. Riding the current was fast. Easy. And a death trap. Following that river all the way north meant dumping his forces straight into Yunmeng Marsh. Jiangdong had the greatest navy in the known world. If he sailed three thousand seasoned infantry into that giant lake, they would become very expensive fish food.
Water route was out. That left him with two land routes to reach Jiangling in the north.
Option one, march through the dense, unforgiving mountain forests of Wuling Commandery.
Option two, march straight up the main road through the city of Hanshou.
The mountain route promised safety from enemy patrols, but Zhang Ni was a stranger to this terrain. He did not know the hunting trails or the hidden valleys. His gut told him getting lost in those woods would be worse than fighting the Jiangdong navy on open water.
So fate left him a single path. Overland. Punch straight through Hanshou to reach Jiangling.
Zhang Ni rested his hand on his sword hilt and muttered into the wind. "Master Lu really predicted every single step."
---
When Zhang Ni traveled from Nanzhong to Jiaozhou with the diplomatic envoys, a certain Master Lu something had tagged along. The sharp scholar spent the whole journey mapping out hypothetical scenarios, analyzing the geopolitical landscape of Jingnan with terrifying accuracy.
Master Lu concluded that if Zhang Ni ever needed to reinforce Jiangling, he would be forced to march through Hanshou. The man even drafted a perfect operational blueprint. Cross through Quanling. Abandon the river. March overland through Yongchang straight to Zhaoling County. Capture enemy ships, ride the Zi River down to Yiyang, then ditch the boats and push north.
Zhang Ni looked around at his current situation. His actual movements matched Master Lu's theoretical blueprint with flawless precision. Not a single step was off.
"However," Zhang Ni grumbled, rubbing his aching temples, "Master Lu failed to mention one small detail. He never said Hanshou would be stuffed full of Jiangdong troops."
He had learned the ugly truth shortly after helping Administrator Wu Ju crush the enemy forces in the south. The captured Jiangdong soldiers spilled everything under interrogation, no reservations, nothing held back. The conclusion was clear. The Jiangdong high command was pulling elite units from all over the southern theater and funneling every spare soldier into a massive siege camp outside Hanshou.
This directly contradicted Master Lu's earlier prediction. The scholar had guessed Hanshou would be a heavy supply depot guarded by a bunch of half-baked second-rate infantry.
Zhang Ni had no clue what caused the sudden shift in enemy strategy. He remembered that bizarre conversation with the idiot calling himself the Supreme General of Lingling. According to that half-brained general, the Jiangdong high command believed capturing Hanshou would snap the back of the entire southern resistance.
Master Lu made a slight miscalculation. Did not matter. Zhang Ni had to march to Hanshou regardless.
If his three thousand troops ran into ten thousand Jiangdong infantry on solid ground, they could still fight. Maneuver. Do whatever it took to survive.
If his three thousand men got surrounded by ten thousand Jiangdong sailors in the middle of Yunmeng Marsh, they had one option left. Jump into the water and drown themselves to preserve Liu Huangshu's honor. But Zhang Ni preferred to stay dry and keep fighting all the way.
Besides, the intelligence suggested a fierce battle was already raging at Hanshou. Someone was putting up a hell of a fight against the Jiangdong invaders. An enemy of my enemy is a good friend. Zhang Ni knew he had to reinforce whoever was holding the line.
But he was not delusional. Three thousand men could not defeat forty thousand in a head-on clash. His role was to strike the southern flank, break the siege lines, and create enough chaos for the defenders to counterattack. Hit hard, hit fast, and force the enemy to reposition. That was the play.
His mind was set. He stood up from the bow, walked smoothly to the side of the boat, and tapped the shoulder of an exhausted oarsman. He nudged the soldier aside and gripped the heavy wooden oar himself.
The Yizhou troops watched their commanding general take up manual labor. The men exchanged glances, then grinned. Morale spiked. The men rowed with fresh, explosive fury. The small wooden ships surged forward, slicing through the river currents toward Yiyang with lethal intent.
---
Far to the north, the battlefield outside Hanshou was a churning mess of mud and blood.
"Woi, Dong Xi, you bitch! You pathetic bastard, beaten dog! You don't even have the balls to face me again!"
The roar thundered across the broken terrain. Shamoke stood near the shattered city gates, lungs that could rival a war drum. His Han dialect was rough and heavily accented. Ma Liang had spent months drilling proper speech into his skull, but what stuck were the curse words. Every insult came out loud, clear, and dripping with venom.
"You are a spineless rat! A cowardly turtle son hiding in his shell!" Shamoke bellowed.
The Jiangdong formations rippled with unease. Soldiers shuffled their boots. Hundreds of men nervously turned their heads toward their own command tent.
They all pretended to see nothing. Lalalalala, can't hear you. Just another day at the office.
But inside that tent, Dong Xi sat on a folding stool. His face burned with crushing humiliation. He wanted to grab his spear, charge out there, and poke seven holes in that barbarian's chest. Wash away this shame with blood. Simple plan. Very satisfying.
He reached for his weapon. His fingers brushed the cold steel.
Then his brain, that traitorous bastard, decided to remind him of Shamoke's greatest hits. The freakish strength. The brutal traps. The way he swung that iron mace like it weighed nothing.
His hand pulled back. Nope. Not today.
"Do not let the savage's words get into your head, General Dong."
A loud, arrogant laugh filled the tent. Pan Zhang stepped forward, clapped Dong Xi on the shoulder, and flashed a grin.
"The enemy commander is trying to provoke you into a mistake," Pan Zhang said smoothly. "Do not let it bother you, General. These barbarians are arrogant fools who know nothing of true martial prowess. Watch closely. I will march out, crush this savage in single combat, and we will take Hanshou today."
He did not wait for a response. Snatched up his weapon. Threw open the tent flap. Strutted into the sunlight like he already owned the place.
Dong Xi opened his mouth to shout a warning. He wanted to explain the sheer, freakish power of the tribal chief. He really did.
He watched Pan Zhang swagger away.
He closed his mouth.
You know what? Some lessons you just have to learn yourself.
Dong Xi was a general in name only.
During the disaster at Linyuan, Shamoke had beaten his unit senseless. Dong Xi got captured alive. His soldiers were slaughtered. The survivors surrendered.
Right now, Dong Xi commanded a pathetic squad of barely fifty personal guards. He was only standing in this tent because the Pan clan of Hanshou had betrayed the city and released him back to Jiangdong as a goodwill gesture.
Dong Xi let out a long, depressed sigh, picked up a bronze cup, and took a miserable sip of water.
He stared at the floor and made a vow. Once this nightmare is over, I'm gonna borrow some troops and go slaughter a few random mountain tribes. Just to make myself feel whole again.
He started counting in his head, tracking the rhythm of his own breathing.
He reached breath number thirty-seven.
A loud, booming laugh echoed across the battlefield. Shamoke again.
"IS THIS GARBAGE WHAT YOU CALL A FIERCE WARRIOR? HAS JIANGDONG RUN OUT OF MEN WITH ACTUAL COURAGE? BAH! TRASH!"
The command tent flap flew open. Several panicked soldiers rushed inside, carrying Pan Zhang by his arms and legs.
The arrogant swagger from thirty-seven breaths ago was gone.
Pan Zhang looked like he had been trampled by a stampeding rhino. One side of his face was swollen to the size of a melon. His mouth leaked blood. His cheeks were caked in mud. His expensive, beautifully crafted leather armor was shredded into useless strips.
But even through the beating, Pan Zhang's mind was still working.
He had seen something out there.
During the brief moments before Shamoke's mace turned his world into a blur of pain, Pan Zhang had spotted a weakness in the barbarian barricades. The left section was built on uneven rubble. The footing was loose. A coordinated push with heavy shields could topple the whole defensive line. Shamoke was too busy smashing faces to notice.
The medics swarmed forward, splashing water on his face and applying frantic first aid. Pan Zhang groaned. His eyes fluttered open.
The first thing Pan Zhang wanted to do was scream at Dong Xi. You idiot. Where is the basic trust between comrades? Why didn't you warn me, asshole? He turned his swollen head.
He saw the bitter, sympathetic smile on Dong Xi's face. The words died in his throat. Fine. Whatever.
"These filthy savages are incredibly strong," Dong Xi said in a calm, measured voice. "But they lack discipline. They lack numbers. They cannot defeat our army in a prolonged fight. You should take a slow, methodical approach to this siege, General Pan."
It was safe advice. Boring as hell. Pan Zhang hated every word of it. But his bruised ribs told him Dong Xi was right. Slow and steady was the only way to survive.
"Their left barricade is weak," Pan Zhang muttered through swollen lips. "The ground is loose. Tell the engineers to focus the ram on that section. It will collapse twice as fast as the rest of the line."
Dong Xi blinked. It was the first useful tactical observation anyone had made all week.
Shamoke's fresh insults echoed from outside, giving Pan Zhang a splitting headache. He waved a dismissive hand at his officers. "Move the archers to the front line. Fire on command. Make that loudmouth savage shut his mouth."
The two defeated Jiangdong generals sat in the tent. They locked eyes. They both let out a deep, synchronized sigh.
Back home in Jiangdong, they were living legends. They had built their reputations on fearless martial prowess.
Crushing local rebellions.
Dominating their home provinces.
The wealthy noble families called them the "Tiger Ministers."
Pan Zhang and Dong Xi always pretended to be humble about the nickname. Secretly, they loved it. It fed their enormous egos.
But ever since they marched out of Jiangdong, everything had gone catastrophically wrong.
They marched north and got butchered by Zhang Liao at Hefei.
Now they marched west, commanding an overwhelming force of nearly forty thousand elite soldiers against a pathetic army of ten thousand barbarians. And they were bleeding out in a miserable stalemate.
They sat in the dirt and seriously wondered if the warriors of Jiangdong were simply physically inferior to the men of the north.
---
Outside the shattered walls of Hanshou, the sky was practically raining wood and iron.
Shamoke swung his heavy iron mace, swatting a few stray arrows out of the air like they were pesky mosquitoes, and ducked behind the rubble of the ruined gate. Sha Long was already hunkered down there, shield raised, looking about as bothered as a guy waiting for a bus.
"Pah! Curse their ancestors!" Shamoke spat a glob of phlegm into the dirt. "These Jiangdong rats are spineless. Every last one of them!"
Sha Feng jogged over, ducking under a stray shaft, and flashed a grin. "Chief, you've been screaming insults at them for ten days straight. Pretty sure they got the memo by now."
"Then why are they still hiding behind their archers?" Shamoke grumbled, leaning his mace against the stone. "Zhou Yu's veterans, my ass. More like Zhou Yu's pampered grandchildren."
Sha Ce stepped up, crossing his arms. "Chief, they've got forty thousand guys out there. We've got ten thousand. They don't need to rush. They can just sit on their hands and starve us out."
Shamoke ran the numbers in his head. The legendary Battle of Red Cliffs was only a few years back. This army outside definitely had veterans who fought under Zhou Yu. Back then, thirty thousand Jiangdong troops smashed a northern armada of eight hundred thousand. Glorious stuff. Now? They had forty thousand men against ten thousand tribal warriors, and they were too terrified to launch a frontal charge.
The foot soldiers were fine. The generals were trash.
Honestly, Shamoke was starting to forgive the Pan clan for their little betrayal inside the city. Even if their treason let Dong Xi slip away, who cared? Dong Xi was a mediocre commander at best. His survival didn't shift the geopolitical needle one inch.
Shamoke stepped back from the firing line, and the transformation was instant. The loud, chest-thumping brute persona vanished. His expression sharpened into something cold and dangerously focused. He let his attendants unbuckle his heavy rattan armor.
"Sha Ce," Shamoke said, tilting his head back to stare at the smoke-choked sky. "Give it to me straight. How screwed are we?"
Sha Ce didn't sugarcoat it. "We're boxed in. Jiangdong fortified the northern roads after chasing us down from Zuotang. Marching toward Jiangling is suicide. To the south is the Yuan River, and they've got endless warships patrolling it. To the east is the Yunmeng Marsh, and we don't own a single boat. We could stand on the muddy shore and wave at their navy, but that's about the extent of our naval power."
Shamoke's jaw tightened. "So, one way out. West. We ditch Hanshou and scatter into the deep mountains."
"Yep," Sha Ce nodded.
The urge to just pack up and run was incredibly tempting. For a split second, he actually considered it. Then his eyes drifted to his makeshift desk, where the official silver seal rested. Imperial Uncle Liu Bei had personally appointed him Magistrate of Hanshou.
That Han title wasn't just a shiny piece of metal. It was legitimacy. It was civilization. It was the exact future the Wuling tribes had been chasing for hundreds of years and never caught.
Until right now.
Shamoke shook his head, killing the thought dead. "No. We aren't running."
Sha Feng raised an eyebrow. "We're really doing this? Holding the line?"
"We're really doing this." Shamoke snapped his fingers at Sha Long. "Round up the other chiefs. War council. Right now."
The other Wuling chiefs piled into the command tent pretty fast. Every tribe had their own boss, and every single one of them had eaten Ma Liang's food, taken Ma Liang's medicine, and listened to Ma Liang's lectures. They had all sworn loyalty to Liu Bei, which meant they all agreed to let Shamoke call the shots.
The meeting started the moment the last chief ducked through the tent flap.
Shamoke looked around the room. "Two choices, boys. We stand our ground and die defending this city, or we run away and hide in the caves like scared badgers."
A few nods. A few grunts. But not everyone was on board.
An old chief from the northern hills, a man with a face like cracked leather and eyes that had seen too many winters, spoke up. His name was Chief Tao, and his tribe was one of the smaller ones. "Easy for you to say, Shamoke. Your Wuxi are the biggest. You lose half your warriors, you still have a tribe. I lose half my warriors..." He shook his head. "I don't have a tribe anymore. My people are finished."
The room went still.
Shamoke met his eyes. He didn't snap back. Didn't insult him. "You think I don't know that? You think I want to watch my people die on these walls?"
"Then why stay?" Chief Tao asked. His voice wasn't angry. It was tired. "Why not scatter into the mountains, live to fight another day? We've done it before. Our grandfathers did it. Their grandfathers did it. Running is how we survived."
Shamoke was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was low.
"Because if we run now, we will always be running. Our grandfathers ran. Their grandfathers ran. And what did it get us? Another century in the mud. Another century of being called savages by men who can't even swing a mace properly." He pointed toward the silver seal on his desk. "That thing? That's not just a title. That's a door. Imperial Uncle Liu Bei opened it. If we hold this city, if we prove we can stand and fight like men of Han, that door stays open. Our sons get to walk through it. Our daughters get to walk through it. But if we run..." He shook his head. "We close that door forever. And our grandchildren will still be hiding in caves, just like their grandfathers did."
Another silence. Longer this time.
Chief Tao stared at the dirt floor. His jaw worked. Then, slowly, he looked up.
"...You really believe that?"
Shamoke held his gaze. "With everything I have."
The old chief let out a long breath. Then he nodded. Once. Firm.
Sha Hu broke the tension with a grin, tapping his bow. "I've still got plenty of arrows left. I say we give them a proper welcome."
Sha Lei hefted his giant mace, resting it on his shoulder. "I haven't cracked nearly enough skulls this week. Count me in."
One by one, every chief in the room nodded. Not because they weren't afraid. Every man in that tent knew exactly what forty thousand Jiangdong soldiers could do. They knew their wives might become widows. They knew their children might grow up orphans. The fear was there. They just decided, together, that fear was no longer going to make the decision for them.
Shamoke let a wicked smirk spread across his face. "Good. Then let's make these Jiangdong bastards remember exactly why the Wuling tribes have never been tamed."
---
Pan Zhang sat in his command tent, squinting at military scrolls like they personally owed him money. He decided to implement the classic tactical doctrine of "surround three sides, leave one open."
The whole point was to give the enemy a psychological escape route. If the defenders thought they could run, they wouldn't fight to the death. Smart theory. Textbook stuff.
The Wuling tribes ignored his strategy entirely.
Shamoke marched out to the front lines every single morning like he was clocking in for a shift. He'd plant his feet in the mud, cup his hands around his mouth, and hurl the most creative, deeply personal insults at the Jiangdong camp. We're talking next-level verbal warfare. The kind of stuff that made hardened soldiers blush and look at their feet.
The Jiangdong troops would crane their necks, eyes darting toward the command banner, desperately hoping their generals would finally say, "Yeah, go get him."
They were disappointed every single time.
No heroic general rode out to accept a duel. No brave officer charged into the enemy ranks to inspire the boys. Nothing. Just Shamoke's voice echoing across no-man's-land, getting progressively more creative with each passing hour.
Ever since Pan Zhang got his face rearranged on day one, he refused to show his nose anywhere near the front lines. The man had essentially moved into his tent and declared it a sovereign nation.
Because of this spectacular lack of leadership, the Jiangdong siege crawled forward at the speed of a constipated ox. They were weeks behind schedule.
But math was still math. Jiangdong had forty thousand guys. The Wuling tribes had ten thousand. You didn't need a genius to see how that equation resolved.
The Jiangdong engineers went to work. They built fortified earthen camps, inch by inch, choking the city like a python. Archer squads rotated in shifts, keeping a constant rain of arrows over the barricades so the defenders couldn't even take a piss without a shield. A few days later, Shamoke finally made the call to pull back. He abandoned the shattered outer walls and dragged his forces into the inner city limits.
Calling it an "inner city" was generous. It was barely a defensive line. Just a chaotic pile of ruined houses, splintered timber, and heaped rubble. The kind of thing you'd build if you had three hours, no sleep, and a very angry army breathing down your neck.
This retreat finally forced a shake-up in the Jiangdong command tent. The other senior general decided to crawl out of his hole and personally take the field to crush this annoying little resistance once and for all.
Dong Xi had lost his entire army at Linyuan. He had zero authority to order anyone around. The man was basically a glorified spectator with a fancy title and fifty personal guards.
Of the forty thousand Jiangdong troops surrounding Hanshou, thirty thousand answered directly to Han Dang. The remaining ten thousand were Pan Zhang's own command, though after the beating he took on day one, his authority over them had grown... complicated.
"General Han!" Pan Zhang offered a casual, slightly sloppy salute. His tone was a little too relaxed, like he was greeting a neighbor at a barbecue instead of addressing a superior officer.
Han Dang frowned. The wrinkles on his weathered face deepened into harsh canyons.
Han Dang was the real deal. A true, dyed-in-the-wool veteran. He had served the Sun family since the days of Sun Jian, the founding patriarch himself. He had stared down the most terrifying heavy cavalry the northern plains could throw at him and lived to tell the tale. Because of that deep, bloody experience, he held very little respect for the younger generation of Jiangdong officers.
And Pan Zhang? Pan Zhang was the worst example of everything Han Dang despised.
The man relied purely on brute strength. He acted like a local thug who'd been handed a sword and told to go hit things. He had no concept of the wider world, no interest in logistics, no patience for strategy. He was a raging alcoholic, obsessively greedy, and chased empty glory like a starving dog chasing a bone.
In Han Dang's expert opinion, a man like Pan Zhang was only fit to serve in the suicide vanguard, the guys you sent in first to soak up arrows.
Yet Sun Quan had artificially elevated the man's rank and constantly praised him as a "rare talent."
Now the entire army was paying the price for that "rare talent."
Pan Zhang had rushed out to fight a duel, hit a brick wall in the shape of Shamoke, got his face caved in, and shattered the morale of forty thousand men in one afternoon.
If the founding patriarch Sun Jian was still alive, or if the legendary conqueror Sun Ce was still calling the shots, Han Dang would have ordered the military police to drag Pan Zhang to the chopping block before lunch. A nice, public execution to remind everyone what incompetence looked like.
But times had changed. The old masters were dead, and the children were running the asylum.
Han Dang pretended not to notice Pan Zhang's sloppy salute. He stared straight ahead and issued his orders in a cold, flat voice.
"The tribal bandits have retreated to the inner rubble. Their options are narrowing."
He pointed a scarred finger at the pathetic barricades in the distance. "We have taken the main walls. Troop morale is recovering. General Pan, you and I will lead the vanguard assault together. We will set the example for the entire army. We will crush the enemy today and ease the burdens of our Lord."
Pan Zhang desperately wanted to refuse. Every fiber of his bruised, battered body screamed at him to fake a stomach ache, a leg cramp, a sudden onset of blindness, anything. Then he looked at Han Dang's dead-eyed stare.
The excuse died in his throat. He forced a stiff, unnatural smile onto his face.
"Fighting to the death on the battlefield alongside you, General Han, is the greatest honor of my life."
Han Dang stared into Pan Zhang's soul. "Make sure it stays that way."
---
In the era of cold steel, boosting army morale was a straightforward equation. Han Dang had spent decades perfecting the recipe.
Step one: let the infantry get a full night of deep sleep. No surprise drills, no midnight inspections. Just sleep.
Step two: feed them a hearty meal. Hot meat. Fresh grain. None of that cold, stale porridge garbage. A soldier with a full belly fights twice as hard.
Step three: pick the perfect hour to launch the attack. Not too early, not too late. Right when the sun hits the enemy's eyes and the morning dew makes the ground slick.
Step four: move the giant command banner all the way to the front line. Make sure every single common soldier, from the lowest spearman to the highest officer, can see their commanding general standing in the mud with them.
Simple, honest actions. Enough to make men gladly lay down their lives.
Han Dang executed every step flawlessly.
Once Jiangdong secured the shattered outer walls, they brought in the engineers. The work crews leveled the terrain with ruthless efficiency. They knocked down the remaining stone pillars. They hauled in tons of loose dirt to fill the trenches. They turned the treacherous, uneven incline into a smooth, flat highway leading straight to the enemy barricades.
By the time the sun crested the horizon, the battlefield looked less like a siege and more like a freshly paved road leading directly into hell.
Han Dang stood at the front of the formation. He looked at the pathetic, makeshift rubble wall defending the inner city. He did not mock it. He did not laugh. He simply drew his heavy iron ring-pommel sword and raised the blade high into the air.
The ultimate signal. Attack.
A great block of grizzled Jiangdong veterans stood directly behind Han Dang. These were men who had been fighting since before most of the younger soldiers were born. They unleashed a unified, deafening roar and stepped forward as one giant machine. The ground trembled under thousands of iron-shod boots.
The advance had begun.
Pan Zhang gritted his teeth. He had no choice but to mirror the action. He drew his weapon, barked orders at his personal retainers, and forced his legs to move at the same pace. His hands were sweating. His mouth was dry. But he marched.
Behind the barricades, Shamoke stood ready. His muscles coiled like heavy springs under his skin.
He watched the old, gray-haired Han Dang marching at the front of the enemy formation, sword raised, face carved from stone.
Shamoke's eyes burned with genuine respect.
"So Jiangdong does have a real tiger hidden in the grass!" Shamoke laughed out loud, slapping his thigh. "Finally! Someone worth hitting!"
He ignored Pan Zhang marching on the flank. Pan Zhang was a beaten dog who had hidden in his tent like a terrified turtle for days. Shamoke no longer viewed him as a threat.
The man was furniture.
Han Dang was a man of action, not words. No insults. No taunts. No grand speeches. He marched forward with a terrifying, wordless focus, his elite bodyguards flanking him in perfect symmetry. He closed the distance, planted his feet in the mud, and swung his heavy blade.
The veteran infantry saw their aging commander charging into the fray, gray hair whipping in the wind, sword flashing in the morning light. Their blood boiled. The older soldiers screamed battle cries that cracked their throats and sprinted forward, desperate to keep up with his brutal pace.
Shamoke did not hold back. He gripped his heavy iron mace with both hands, roared loud enough to shake the rubble, and charged out from the barricade to meet the old tiger head-on.
The weapons collided with a deafening crash of metal. Sparks showered the dirt.
Shamoke realized instantly that he was in for a miserable afternoon.
Han Dang had survived a hundred battlefields. The old man knew every trick in the book, every feint, every dirty move, every angle of attack that a younger, stronger opponent would try.
Han Dang lacked the raw, explosive strength of his youth. His shoulders ached. His knees protested. He compensated with flawless technique. When Shamoke swung with enough force to crack a city gate, Han Dang deflected the blow at a precise angle and slipped aside. He refused to match strength with strength. Why would he? That was a losing game.
But when he saw a tiny opening, a shifted foot, a dropped elbow, a half-second of overextension, the old general struck with venomous, suicidal aggression. He gladly traded minor cuts to inflict deep wounds. A shallow slice across his own forearm in exchange for a deep gash along Shamoke's thigh. A bruised shoulder to land a vicious pommel strike against Shamoke's ribs.
Worse, Han Dang did not fight alone. When his stamina dipped and his breathing grew ragged, his elite bodyguards seamlessly stepped in to absorb the pressure. They rotated like the blades of a wheel, covering his blind spots, blocking the strikes he was too slow to catch. They fought as a single, multi-headed beast.
To Shamoke's immense frustration, their clash locked into a grinding, bloody stalemate. Neither man could land a finishing blow. Neither man would back down.
With the ultimate battlefield disruptor pinned down by Han Dang, the rest of the Jiangdong army went to work.
The infantry crashed into the tribal lines like a tide hitting a sandcastle. The Jiangdong soldiers realized, slowly but surely, that they had nothing to fear. The tribal chief was busy. The tribal chief was occupied. The tribal chief was not coming to save them.
And they remembered how to fight mountain tribes.
The Wuling warriors possessed incredible individual courage. They were fearless in a brawl, terrifying in a one-on-one clash. But they had zero understanding of formal military formations. They fought on pure instinct, raw emotion, and the desperate hope that swinging really hard would solve everything.
It looked like two great armies clashing together from a distance. Down in the muddy reality of the trenches, it was a tactical slaughter.
A single tribal warrior would charge forward, screaming, mace raised high. Before the weapon came down, three or four Jiangdong spearmen would step in from different angles. One blocked the swing. Two thrust their spears into the gaps of the warrior's rattan armor. The fourth finished him off with a short sword to the neck. Efficient. Practiced.
Multiply that by a thousand. Multiply it by ten thousand.
Without their chiefs breaking the enemy formations, the tribal losses spiked. Bodies piled up on the rubble. Blood turned the dirt into a slick, sucking mud that grabbed at boots and swallowed the fallen.
The screams of his dying men reached Shamoke's ears. He knew those voices. Sha Bao's sharp cavalry yell, cut short mid-charge, the sound of a rider falling before his horse even hit the ground. Wu Tu's roar, that bone-chilling battle cry that used to make enemy scouts piss themselves, fading into a wet, strangled gurgle. His eyes went red. He tapped into a primal, berserker fury, swinging his iron mace with terrifying speed, trying to break the stalemate, trying to carve a path back to his people.
His aggression made him sloppy. His defensive footwork fell apart. He left openings the size of dinner plates.
Han Dang saw them. Every single one.
He ignored them.
The old general remained perfectly calm, maintaining his suffocating pressure. He did not get greedy. He did not lunge for the killing blow. He simply kept pressing, kept deflecting, kept bleeding the tribal chief of his stamina one drop at a time.
Panic gripped Shamoke's heart. Cold, ugly, unfamiliar panic.
The battle lines ground forward relentlessly. The makeshift inner barricades began to collapse under the sheer weight of the Jiangdong assault. Timbers snapped. Stones tumbled. Men screamed as the defensive line crumbled beneath them.
The city was seconds away from annihilation.
---
Then, out of nowhere, a shockwave of chaos erupted on the southern flank of the Jiangdong army.
The rear guard screamed in raw, unfiltered terror. Horses whinnied. Men scrambled. A young, unknown general on horseback ripped straight through their defensive line like a hot knife through wet paper, carving a bloody path through bewildered soldiers who couldn't even raise their shields in time.
His weapon flashed in the sunlight. His voice cut through the din of battle like a thunderclap, loud enough to make the drums stutter.
"Ma Zhong is here! Who dares fight me to the death!"